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In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when we have two beliefs that conflict, or our beliefs and actions don't match, making us feel uncomfortable. The concept was originally described back in the 1950s by psychologist Leon Festinger. The… Continue reading What Is… Cognitive Dissonance
I've written before about whether being politically correct is helpful or ineffective, and I wanted to explore the topic a bit more. Personally, I'm inclined to think that it does more harm than good, at least as society currently conceives it. So, is there a better way than political correctness for people to be respectful?… Continue reading Is There a Better Way than Political Correctness?
I'm generally pretty out of the loop when it comes to pop psychology phenomena, so I just stumbled across the term toxic productivity fairly recently. While I hadn't heard the term before, I'm at least with it enough to know that productivity talk is all over the internet. What is toxic productivity? Toxic productivity is… Continue reading Why Is Toxic Productivity a Thing?
In this series, I dig a little deeper into the meaning of psychology-related terms. This week's term is panic buying. Panic buying has been in the news in the UK recently, and I'm sure everyone remembers the great toilet paper crisis of 2020. This phenomenon has occurred a number of times over the past century.… Continue reading What Is… Panic Buying
This post flows from a few different things that other bloggers have been talking about lately. I'll refer specifically to a couple of posts about faith on Tisha B'Av, a Jewish day of mourning, but this also ties into what some other people have been talking about with regards to subjective vs. objective reality. This… Continue reading Faith, Attribution, and Cognitive Dissonance
I got thinking about this after watching an interview with Steven Pinker, one of my academic crushes, and then another interview with Jordan Peterson. Both referred to biological differences between men and women, although in different ways, and I wanted to do a post exploring my own take on sex and gender differences, and the… Continue reading Separating Out Sex/Gender, Biology and Social Construct
It seems like everyone’s talking about gaslighting these days. But if everyone and their dog seems to be gaslighting (or being gaslit by) everyone else and their cat (or if cat and dog are both accusing the other of gaslighting them), is it really a meaningful descriptor of emotional abuse? Or does the meaning just… Continue reading Is the Term Gaslighting Overused?
Last week I reviewed White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. There were some important concepts that she alluded to but didn’t clearly explain, so I decided to do a post, from a social constructionist viewpoint, about how stereotypes and prejudice develop, and why the difference between implicit and explicit beliefs is important. Our societies create categories… Continue reading Racism, Prejudice, and Implicit/Explicit Beliefs
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, whose background is education and who is white herself, looks at racism and why she believes white people don't want to talk about it. I went into the book knowing that it was popular, but having my doubts about the effectiveness of the title at accomplishing the intended effect. White… Continue reading Book Review: White Fragility
The push to be politically correct drives some people crazy, while others think that being careful about language is necessary to keep from causing offence. There are all kinds of people out there being intentionally offensive (just look at Twitter), but to what extent should we as a society go hunting for it when it's… Continue reading Is Being Politically Correct Helpful or Ineffective?